Hero in Disguise (Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero 1) - Page 4

Spinning on one heel, Connie threw herself back into the party with what Summer sensed was a desperate act of defiance. Summer ached for her friend, whose self-confidence and self-image had been so badly damaged by her failed teenage marriage. Connie would never admit those weaknesses, just as Summer found it hard to reveal her own insecurities and vulnerabilities to others, but the buried scars were there, in both of the determinedly cheerful young women.

Summer also felt rather sorry for Derek, whose face had gone hard but whose eyes were still so sad. “Can’t you just accept her the way she is, Derek?” she asked suddenly, wanting to help despite her reluctance to get involved in a family matter. “You said you wanted to be her friend. Give her a chance to show you what a wonderful person she is.”

“Now who’s offering advice?” he questioned her shortly, then sighed. “Sorry. Listen, I think I’ll cut out now. I’ve had about all of this ‘fun’ I can take.”

For some strange reason Summer was reluctant to see him leave, but no hint of that reluctance was allowed to creep into her voice as she responded. “All right. I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet tonight, Derek. Perhaps we’ll see each other again soon.”

Derek turned his attention away from his sister to give Summer another one of those intense, unsettling looks. “You can count on it,” he told her. Then he drained the last of his Scotch and started across the room toward the door. Before he reached it, Bonnie Tyler’s wonderfully sandpapery voice sounded from the speakers in the chorus of “Holding Out For a Hero.” Summer had been watching his departure, so she was looking straight into his eyes when he turned, jerked his head toward the stereo to indicate that he’d recognized the words, then lifted two fingers in a kind of salute before he disappeared through the door.

Nice, Summer thought. Strong. Dependable. Too bad he was so darned proper.

“Well, what did you think of my brother?” Connie asked later. “You two certainly talked for a long time. Wasn’t he just the way I des

cribed?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Summer answered vaguely. “I think you might be underestimating him, Connie. He’s not as stern and inflexible as you’ve told me he is.”

“Uh-oh. Don’t tell me you’ve been taken in by his embassy charm.”

“I like him, Connie—for a respectable businessman-type. I think he’s unhappy about the distance between you. He implied that he’d like to be your friend.”

Connie snorted bitterly. “Friends accept each other the way they are, like you and I do, Summer. They don’t try to change each other.”

“Maybe Derek will figure that out for himself before long. Give him a chance,” Summer urged, repeating the words she’d used to Derek. “After all, he’s only been back in the country for a few months after being away for most of your life. You’ve hardly seen him during those years, so the two of you have had to start almost as strangers.”

“He still treats me as if I were ten years old,” Connie complained. “I’m so tired of him telling me that I could do better for myself than what I’m doing.”

“Give it time, Connie. He’s trying.”

“I’ll try,” Connie sighed. “It would please my parents if Derek and I learned to get along better,” she added, as if it really didn’t matter to her one way or the other. Then she rushed back into the middle of the party, obviously intending to put her brother completely out of her mind.

Summer shook her head in sympathy, never asking how two siblings could be so different. After all, her own family was a good example of the same phenomenon. Summer’s two lovely sisters were as different from each other as they were from Summer.

But Summer and Connie—now they were a well-matched pair. Summer had liked Connie Anderson from the day she’d first met her in the accounting office where they both worked. They loved to laugh together, and their sense of humor was almost identical. They enjoyed music, parties, people and comedy clubs. They both hid any fears or doubts they might carry inside them behind quick wits and ready smiles, each having her own good reasons for doing so.

Their only major difference was their approach to men. Trying to bolster her bruised ego, Connie flitted from one man to another with all the discrimination of a starving honeybee in a field of wildflowers. Summer dated frequently and enjoyed the company of men, but few of the relationships she’d tentatively entered during the past five years had progressed beyond friendship. She maintained that she was waiting for a flawless fairy-tale hero—though she knew she would never find one—which was her method of protecting herself from the type of pain and disillusionment she had experienced five years earlier. Only to herself would she admit she wouldn’t really know what to do with a fairytale hero if she found one. She suspected that a truly perfect man would make her all too aware of her own imperfections, as well as boring her to tears.

Other than that one relatively unimportant diversity, Summer and Connie could have hatched from the same egg. They continued to work in their uninspiring, undemanding jobs only to finance their more pleasurable pastimes, were the despair of their families and employers and the delight of their many friends. All in all, Summer reflected contentedly, fate had been very kind to allow her path to cross Connie Anderson’s.

She had no idea of how fate had capriciously decided to bring Connie’s brother into Summer’s life, as well.

2

SUMMER CAME partially awake with a muffled groan, reached out a hand and slapped at her alarm clock. When that failed to stop the persistent chiming that had disturbed her, she groped for the telephone receiver and pulled it to her ear. “Hello? What is it?” she demanded hoarsely, then glared at the instrument when it responded to her impatient question with a monotonous dial tone. Finally waking enough to realize that the chimes were the result of a determined finger pressed to the doorbell, she muttered an unladylike curse and snatched up her lightweight robe.

“Who on earth would be ringing my doorbell at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?” she grumbled, stumbling across the party-littered living room to the door. “Derek!” she exclaimed in surprise, throwing open the door to reveal the impatient-looking man in the hallway. “What are you doing here?” And how could anyone look so crisp and alert at this hour of the morning? she added silently.

His gray eyes leisurely surveying her tumbled hair, sleep-blurred features and bedroom attire, Derek answered, “I’m here to see Connie. Is she still sleeping?”

“I’m sure she is,” Summer replied, leaning weakly against the edge of the door she held open. The slow, thorough journey of his eyes from the top of her head to her bare toes had affected her as if it had been his hand that had examined her, leaving her feeling a little shaken. God, it was too early in the morning to deal with this type of sensation. She hadn’t even had her coffee yet!

“Would you mind waking her?” Derek asked quietly in that gravelly voice that was like a sandpaper caress to her senses. “I thought I would take her out for breakfast.”

Summer’s habit had always been to lighten a tense moment with a wisecrack. Since Derek was making her decidedly uncomfortable with his unblinking pewter regard of her, she grinned impishly. “My goodness, is this an impulsive action?” she asked in mock astonishment, then continued without allowing him to respond. “It’s very nice of you, but you’d need an airplane to get to her before lunch. Connie’s in Los Angeles.”

Derek looked startled, and Summer imagined that one did not often catch that particular expression on his stern face. “Los Angeles? How can that be? I left her here less than ten hours ago.”

“You left the party only a couple of hours before Connie left for L.A.”

Tags: Gina Wilkins Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero Romance
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